The visit disgusted me. I'm amazed Powell has the nerve to show his face in Halabja, given America's (in the guise of the Reagan administration) involvement in the atrocity there.

In 1988 Colin Powell was national security adviser. The administration of which he was a part chose to turn a blind eye to Saddam Hussein's gassing of his own people because at the time it was Iran, not Iraq, that was America's Number One Enemy.

Barbara O'Brien dissected the Halabja/America affair in the New York Times in February. The article is reprinted here.